Matthew Broderick Gets In On The Tower Heist

The Tower Heist is about to become the next big production to take over the streets of New York, and we could sure use the love, especially since the Spider-Man reboot is abandoning Peter Parker's homeland for a Los Angeles soundstage (how dare they!) Director Brett Ratner may not be exactly the guy you think of for deep familiarity with the New York theater scene, but he at least had the sense to cast one actor who would rather not leave his West Village apartment if he can help it: Matthew Broderick.

Deadline reports that Broderick has joined the cast of the film, to play a Wall Street guy robbed in a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme along with characters played by Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Tea Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe and Michael Pena. All of them decide to strike back at the thief (Alan Alda), who happens to be under house arrest in a building where Stiller's character is a superintendent. The cast makes it sound like this will be the weirdest Ocean's Eleven knockoff yet, but maybe in this case weird can be good? Broderick, among others, could use the hit-- his last movie to be seen by an audience of any size was the execrable Deck The Halls, and before that it was the mega-flop adaptation of his musical The Producers. Teaming up with Brett Ratner isn't exactly a guarantee of success, but we'll root for him in the meantime anyway.